In Essay 3 from Second Thoughts, Ruane and Cerulo analyze the conventional wisdom, “Children are our most precious commodity.” While this belief is deeply ingrained into our nation, social indicators – quantitative measures of social phenomena, seems to show otherwise (Ruane and Cerulo 30). In the United States, the infant mortality rate is higher than that of most developed nations, 25% of 2-years-olds do not have the full series of childhood vaccinations, gunfire kills a child or teen every 3 hours, 41% of children under 18 live in low-income families, whom make an income that is short of meeting necessary basic needs, and 772,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in 2008. The ideal culture – values and norms each society claims as central to its modus operandi – comes into conflict with our real culture – value and norms actually executed and …show more content…
“Much of today’s political rhetoric is fueled by the cultural value America places on children. Threats to our children mobilize American sentiments in a way that few other issues can” (Ruane and Cerulo 29). According to Toulmin’s Model of Argumentation, using children as a value, or warrant, persuades people to support claims-maker’s cause (Best). Phrases such as, “we should reduce gun availability to protect children from shootings,” or “we should adopt new social control policies to reduce the number of missing children,” are few of the many examples takes advantage of the ideal culture we have for children. By picking on this belief continually, the ideal culture of children perpetuates successfully in society and remains relevant. While I do not disagree about having such an ideal culture, it is an evident hypocrisy we need to be aware of and mend over time, rather than be complacent